“I just can’t believe that a bunch of trained soldiers would knowingly agree to kill innocent masses … all the while fearing they might get sick and die themselves.”shot him a puzzled look. “Robert, what do you think soldiers do when they go to war? They kill innocent people and risk their own death. Anything is possible when people believe in a cause.”
“A cause? Releasing a plague?”glanced at him, her brown eyes probing. “Robert, the cause is not releasing a plague … it’s saving the world.” She paused. “One of the passages in Bertrand Zobrist’s essay that got a lot of people talking was a very pointed hypothetical question. I want you to answer it.”
“What’s the question?”
“Zobrist asked the following: If you could throw a switch and randomly kill half the population on earth, would you do it?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay. But what if you were told that if you didn’t throw that switch right now, the human race would be extinct in the next hundred years?” She paused. “Would you throw it then? Even if it meant you might murder friends, family, and possibly even yourself?”
“Sienna, I can’t possibly—”
“It’s a hypothetical question,” she said. “Would you kill half the population today in order to save our species from extinction?”felt deeply disturbed by the macabre subject they were discussing, and so he was grateful to see a familiar red banner hanging on the side of a stone building just ahead.
“Look,” he announced, pointing. “We’re here.”shook her head. “Like I said. Denial.”51Casa di Dante is located on the Via Santa Margherita and is easily identified by the large banner suspended from the stone facade partway up the alleyway: MUSEO CASA DI DANTE.eyed the banner with uncertainty. “We’re going to Dante’s house?”
“Not exactly,” Langdon said. “Dante lived around the corner. This is more of a Dante … museum.” Langdon had ventured inside the place once, curious about the art collection, which turned out to be no more than reproductions of famous Dante-related works from around the world, and yet it was interesting to see them all gathered together under one roof.looked suddenly hopeful. “And you think they have an ancient copy of The Divine Comedy on display?”chuckled. “No, but I know they have a gift shop that sells huge posters with the entire text of Dante’s Divine Comedy printed in microscopic type.”gave him a slightly appalled glance.
“I know. But it’s better than nothing. The only problem is that my eyes are going, so you’ll have to read the fine print.”
“È chiusa,” an old man called out, seeing them approach the door. “È il giorno di riposo.”for the Sabbath? Langdon felt suddenly disoriented again. He looked at Sienna. “Isn’t today … Monday?”nodded. “Florentines prefer a Monday Sabbath.”groaned, suddenly recalling the city’s unusual weekly calendar. Because tourist dollars flowed most heavily on weekends, many Florentine merchants chose to move the Christian “day of rest” from Sunday to Monday to prevent the Sabbath from cutting too deeply into their bottom line., Langdon realized, this probably also ruled out his other option: the Paperback Exchange—one of Langdon’s favorite Florentine bookshops—which would definitely have had copies of The Divine Comedy on hand.
“Any other ideas?” Sienna said.thought a long moment and finally nodded. “There’s a site just around the corner where Dante enthusiasts gather. I bet someone there has a copy we can borrow.”
“It’s probably closed, too,” Sienna warned. “Almost every place in town moves the Sabbath away from Sunday.”
“This place wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,” Langdon replied with a smile. “It’s a church.”
yards behind them, lurking among the crowd, the man with the skin rash and gold earring leaned on a wall, savoring this chance to catch his breath. His breathing was not getting any better, and the rash on his face was nearly impossible to ignore, especially the sensitive skin just above his eyes. He took off his Plume Paris glasses and gently rubbed his sleeve across his eye sockets, trying not to break the skin. When he replaced his glasses, he could see his quarry moving on. Forcing himself to follow, he continued after them, breathing as gently as possible.
blocks behind Langdon and Sienna, inside the Hall of the Five Hundred, Agent Brüder stood over the broken body of the all-too-familiar spike-haired woman who was now lying sprawled out on the floor. He knelt down and retrieved her handgun, carefully removing the clip for safety before handing it off to one of his men.pregnant museum administrator, Marta Alvarez, stood off to one side. She had just relayed to Brüder a brief but startling account of what had transpired with Robert Langdon since the previous night … including a single piece of information that Brüder was still trying to process.claims to have amnesia.üder pulled out his phone and dialed. The line at the other end rang three times before his boss answered, sounding distant and unsteady.
“Yes, Agent Brüder? Go ahead.”üder spoke slowly to ensure that his every word was understood. “We are still trying to locate Langdon and the girl, but there’s been another development.” Brüder paused. “And if it’s true … it changes everything.”
provost paced his office, fighting the temptation to pour himself another Scotch, forcing himself to face this growing crisis head-on.in his career had he betrayed a client or failed to keep an agreement, and he most certainly had no intention of starting now. At the same time he suspected that he might have gotten himself tangled up in a scenario whose purpose diverged from what he had originally imagined.year ago, the famous geneticist Bertrand Zobrist had come aboard The Mendacium and requested a safe haven in which to work. At that time the provost imagined that Zobrist was planning to develop a secret medical procedure whose patenting would increase Zobrist’s vast fortune. It would not be the first time the Consortium had been hired by paranoid scientists and engineers who preferred working in extreme isolation to prevent their valuable ideas from being stolen.that in mind, the provost accepted the client and was not surprised when he learned that the people at the World Health Organization had begun searching for him. Nor did he give it a second thought when the director of the WHO herself—Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey—seemed to make it her personal mission to locate their client.Consortium has always faced powerful adversaries.agreed, the Consortium carried out their agreement with Zobrist, no questions asked, thwarting Sinskey’s efforts to find him for the entire length of the scientist’s contract.the entire length.than a week before the contract was to expire, Sinskey had somehow located Zobrist in Florence and moved in, harassing and chasing him until he committed suicide. For the first time in his career, the provost had failed to provide the protection he had agreed to, and it haunted him … along with the bizarre circumstances of Zobrist’s death.committed suicide … rather than being captured?the hell was Zobrist protecting?the aftermath of his death, Sinskey had confiscated an item from Zobrist’s safe-deposit box, and now the Consortium was locked in a head-to-head battle with Sinskey in Florence—a high-stakes treasure hunt to find …find what?provost felt himself glance instinctively toward the bookshelf and the heavy tome given to him two weeks ago by the wild-eyed Zobrist.Divine Comedy.provost retrieved the book and carried it back to his desk, where he dropped it with a heavy thud. With unsteady fingers, he opened the cover to the first page and again read the inscription.dear friend, thank you for helping me find the path.world thanks you, too.off, the provost thought, you and I were never friends.read the inscription three more times. Then he turned his eyes to the bright red circle his client had scrawled on his calendar, highlighting tomorrow’s date.world thanks you?turned and gazed out at the horizon a long moment.the silence, he thought about the video and heard the voice of facilitator Knowlton from his earlier phone call. I thought you might want to preview it before upload … the content is quite disturbing.call still puzzled the provost. Knowlton was one of his best facilitators, and making such a request was entirely out of character. He knew better than to suggest an override of the compartmentalization protocol.replacing The Divine Comedy on the shelf, the provost walked to the Scotch bottle and poured himself half a glass.had a very difficult decision to make.52as the Church of Dante, the sanctuary of Chiesa di Santa Margherita dei Cerchi is more of a chapel than a church. The tiny, one-room house of worship is a popular destination for devotees of Dante who revere it as the sacred ground on which transpired two pivotal moments in the great poet’s life.to lore, it was here at this church, at the age of nine, that Dante first laid eyes on Beatrice Portinari—the woman with whom he fell in love at first sight, and for whom his heart ached his entire life. To Dante’s great anguish, Beatrice married another man, and then died at the youthful age of twenty-four.was also in this church, some years later, that Dante married Gemma Donati—a woman who, even by the account of the great writer and poet Boccaccio, was a poor choice of wife for Dante. Despite having children, the couple showed little signs of affection for each other, and after Dante’s exile, neither spouse seemed eager to see the other ever again.love of Dante’s life had always been and would always remain the departed Beatrice Portinari, whom Dante had scarcely known, and yet whose memory was so overpowering for him that her ghost became the muse that inspired his greatest works.’s celebrated volume of poetry La Vita Nuova overflows with flattering verses about “the blessed Beatrice.” More worshipful still, The Divine Comedy casts Beatrice as none other than the savior who guides Dante through paradise. In both works, Dante longs for his unattainable lady., the Church of Dante has become a shrine for the brokenhearted who suffer from unrequited love. The tomb of young Beatrice herself is inside the church, and her simple sepulchre has become a pilgrimage destination for both Dante fans and heartsick lovers alike.morning, as Langdon and Sienna wound their way through old Florence toward the church, the streets continued to narrow until they became little more than glorified pedestrian walkways. An occasional local car appeared, inching through the maze and forcing pedestrians to flatten themselves against the buildings as it passed.
“The church is just around the corner,” Langdon told Sienna, hopeful that one of the tourists inside would be able to help them. He knew their chances of finding a good Samaritan were better now that Sienna had taken back her wig in exchange for Langdon’s jacket, and both had reverted to their normal selves, transforming from rocker and skinhead … to college professor and clean-cut young woman.was relieved once again to feel like himself.they strode into an even tighter alleyway—the Via del Presto—Langdon scanned the various doorways. The entrance of the church was always tricky to locate because the building itself was very small, unadorned, and wedged tightly between two other buildings. One could easily walk past it without even noticing. Oddly, it was often easier to locate this church using not one’s eyes … but one’s ears.of the peculiarities of La Chiesa di Santa Margherita dei Cerchi was that it hosted frequent concerts, and when no concert was scheduled, the church piped in recordings of those concerts so visitors could enjoy the music at any time.anticipated, as they advanced down the alleyway, Langdon began to hear the thin strains of recorded music, which grew steadily louder, until he and Sienna were standing before the inconspicuous entrance. The only indication that this was indeed the correct location was a tiny sign—the antithesis of the bright red banner at the Museo Casa di Dante—that humbly announced that this was the church of Dante and Beatrice.Langdon and Sienna stepped off the street into the dark confines of the church, the air grew cooler and the music grew louder. The interior was stark and simple … smaller than Langdon recalled. There was only a handful of tourists, mingling, writing in journals, sitting quietly in the pews enjoying the music, or examining the curious collection of artwork.the exception of the Madonna-themed altarpiece by Neri di Bicci, almost all of the original art in this chapel had been replaced with contemporary pieces representing the two celebrities—Dante and Beatrice—the reasons most visitors sought out this tiny chapel. Most of the paintings depicted Dante’s longing gaze during his famous first encounter with Beatrice, during which the poet, by his own account, instantly fell in love. The paintings were of widely varying quality, and most, to Langdon’s taste, seemed kitschy and out of place. In one such rendering, Dante’s iconic red cap with earflaps looked like something Dante had stolen from Santa Claus. Nonetheless, the recurring theme of the poet’s yearning gaze at his muse, Beatrice, left no doubt that this was a church of painful love—unfulfilled, unrequited, and unattained.turned instinctively to his left and gazed upon the modest tomb of Beatrice Portinari. This was the primary reason people visited this church, although not so much to see the tomb itself as to see the famous object that sat beside it.wicker basket.morning, as always, the simple wicker basket sat beside Beatrice’s tomb. And this morning, as always, it was overflowing with folded slips of paper—each a handwritten letter from a visitor, written to Beatrice herself.Portinari had become something of a patron saint of star-crossed lovers, and according to long-standing tradition, handwritten prayers to Beatrice could be deposited in the basket in the hope that she would intervene on the writer’s behalf—perhaps inspiring someone to love them more, or helping them find their true love, or even giving them the strength to forget a love who had passed away., many years ago, while in the throes of researching a book on art history, had paused in this church to leave a note in the basket, entreating Dante’s muse not to grant him true love, but to shed on him some of the inspiration that had enabled Dante to write his massive tome.in me, Muse, and through me tell the story …opening line of Homer’s Odyssey had seemed a worthy supplication, and Langdon secretly believed his message had indeed sparked Beatrice’s divine inspiration, for upon his return home, he had written the book with unusual ease.
“Scusate!” Sienna’s voice boomed suddenly. “Potete ascoltarmi tutti?” Everyone?spun to see Sienna loudly addressing the scattering of tourists, all of whom now glanced over at her, looking somewhat alarmed.smiled sweetly at everyone and asked in Italian if anyone happened to have a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy. After some strange looks and shakes of the head, she tried the question in English, without any more success.older woman who was sweeping the altar hissed sharply at Sienna and held up a finger to her lips for silence.turned back to Langdon and frowned, as if to say, “Now what?”’s calling-all-cars solicitation was not quite what Langdon had had in mind, but he had to admit he’d anticipated a better response than she’d received. On previous visits, Langdon had seen no shortage of tourists reading The Divine Comedy in this hallowed space, apparently enjoying a total immersion in the Dante experience.so today.set his sights on an elderly couple seated near the front of the church. The old man’s bald head was dipped forward, chin to chest; clearly he was stealing a nap. The woman beside him seemed very much awake, with a pair of white earbud cables dangling from beneath her gray hair.glimmer of promise, Langdon thought, making his way up the aisle until he was even with the couple. As Langdon had hoped, the woman’s telltale white earbuds snaked down to an iPhone in her lap. Sensing she was being watched, she looked up and pulled the earbuds from her ears.had no idea what language the woman spoke, but the global proliferation of iPhones, iPads, and iPods had resulted in a vocabulary as universally understood as the male/female symbols that graced rest-rooms around the world.
“iPhone?” Langdon asked, admiring her device.old woman brightened at once, nodding proudly. “Such a clever little toy,” she whispered in a British accent. “My son got it for me. I’m listening to my e-mail. Can you believe it—listening to my e-mail? This little treasure actually reads it for me. With my old eyes, it’s such a help.”
“I have one, too,” Langdon said with a smile as he sat down beside her, careful not to wake up her sleeping husband. “But somehow I lost it last night.”
“Oh, tragedy! Did you try the ‘find your iPhone’ feature? My son says—”
“Stupid me, I never activated that feature.” Langdon gave her a sheepish look and ventured hesitantly, “If it’s not too much of an intrusion, would you mind terribly if I borrowed yours for just a moment? I need to look up something online. It would be a big help to me.”
“Of course!” She pulled out the earbuds and thrust the device into his hands. “No problem at all! Poor dear.”thanked her and took the phone. While she prattled on beside him about how terrible she would feel if she lost her iPhone, Langdon pulled up Google’s search window and pressed the microphone button. When the phone beeped once, Langdon articulated his search string.
“Dante, Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto Twenty-five.”woman looked amazed, apparently having yet to learn about this feature. As the search results began to materialize on the tiny screen, Langdon stole a quick glance back at Sienna, who was thumbing through some printed material near the basket of letters to Beatrice.far from where Sienna stood, a man in a necktie was kneeling in the shadows, praying intently, his head bowed low. Langdon couldn’t see his face, but he felt a pang of sadness for the solitary man, who had probably lost his loved one and had come here for comfort.returned his focus to the iPhone, and within seconds was able to pull up a link to a digital offering of The Divine Comedy—freely accessible because it was in the public domain. When the page opened precisely to Canto 25, he had to admit he was impressed with the technology. I’ve got to stop being such a snob about leather-bound books, he reminded himself. E-books do have their moments.the elderly woman looked on, showing a bit of concern and saying something about the high data rates for surfing the Internet abroad, Langdon sensed that his window of opportunity would be brief, and he focused intently on the Web page before him.text was small, but the dim lighting in the chapel made the illuminated screen more legible. Langdon was pleased to see he had randomly stumbled into the Mandelbaum translation—a popular modern rendition by the late American professor Allen Mandelbaum. For his dazzling translation, Mandelbaum had received Italy’s highest honor, the Presidential Cross of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity. While admittedly less overtly poetic than Longfellow’s version, Mandelbaum’s translation tended to be far more comprehensible.I’ll take clarity over poesy, Langdon thought, hoping to quickly spot in the text a reference to a specific location in Florence—the location where Ignazio hid the Dante death mask.iPhone’s tiny screen displayed only six lines of text at a time, and as Langdon began to read, he recalled the passage. In the opening of Canto 25, Dante referenced The Divine Comedy itself, the physical toll its writing had taken on him, and the aching hope that perhaps his heavenly poem could overcome the wolfish brutality of the exile that kept him from his fair Florence.XXVit should happen … if this sacred poem—work so shared by heaven and by earthit has made me lean through these long years—ever overcome the crueltybars me from the fair fold where I slept,lamb opposed to wolves that war on it …the passage was a reminder that fair Florence was the home for which Dante longed while writing The Divine Comedy, Langdon saw no reference to any specific location in the city.
“What do you know about data charges?” the woman interrupted, eyeing her iPhone with sudden concern. “I just remembered my son told me to be careful about Web surfing abroad.”assured her he would be only a minute and offered to reimburse her, but even so, he sensed she would never let him read all one hundred lines of Canto 25.quickly scrolled down to the next six lines and continued reading.then with other voice, with other fleece,shall return as poet and put on,my baptismal font, the laurel crown;there I first found entry to that faithmakes souls welcome unto God, and then,that faith, Peter garlanded my brow.loosely recalled this passage, too—an oblique reference to a political deal offered to Dante by his enemies. According to history, the “wolves” who banished Dante from Florence had told him he could return to the city only if he agreed to endure a public shaming—that of standing before an entire congregation, alone at his baptismal font, wearing only sackcloth as an admission of his guilt.the passage Langdon had just read, Dante, having declined the deal, proclaims that if he ever returns to his baptismal font, he will be wearing not the sackcloth of a guilty man but the laurel crown of a poet.raised his index finger to scroll farther, but the woman suddenly protested, holding out her hand for the iPhone, apparently having reconsidered her loan.barely heard her. In the split second before he had touched the screen, his eye had glossed over a line of text … seeing it a second time.shall return as poet and put on,my baptismal font, the laurel crown;stared at the words, sensing that in his eagerness to find mention of a specific location, he’d almost missed a glowing prospect in the very opening lines.my baptismal font …was home to one of the world’s most celebrated baptismal fonts, which for more than seven hundred years had been used to purify and christen young Florentines—among them, Dante Alighieri.immediately conjured an image of the building containing the font. It was a spectacular, octagonal edifice that in many ways was more heavenly than the Duomo itself. He now wondered if perhaps he’d read all he needed to read.this building be the place Ignazio was referring to?ray of golden light blazed now in Langdon’s mind as a beautiful image materialized—a spectacular set of bronze doors—radiant and glistening in the morning sun.know what Ignazio was trying to tell me!lingering doubts evaporated an instant later when he realized that Ignazio Busoni was one of the only people in Florence who could possibly unlock those doors., the gates are open to you, but you must hurry.handed the iPhone back to the old woman and thanked her profusely.rushed over to Sienna and whispered excitedly, “I know what gates Ignazio was talking about! The Gates of Paradise!”looked dubious. “The gates of paradise? Aren’t those … in heaven?”
“Actually,” Langdon said, giving her a wry smile and heading for the door, “if you know where to look, Florence is heaven.”53shall return as poet … at my baptismal font.’s words echoed repeatedly in Langdon’s mind as he led Sienna northward along the narrow passageway known as Via dello Studio. Their destination lay ahead, and with every step Langdon was feeling more confident that they were on the right course and had left their pursuers behind.gates are open to you, but you must hurry.they neared the end of the chasmlike alleyway, Langdon could already hear the low thrum of activity ahead. Abruptly the cavern on either side of them gave way, spilling them out into a sprawling expanse.Piazza del Duomo.enormous plaza with its complex network of structures was the ancient religious center of Florence. More of a tourist center nowadays, the piazza was already bustling with tour buses and throngs of visitors crowding around Florence’s famed cathedral.arrived on the south side of the piazza, Langdon and Sienna were now facing the side of the cathedral with its dazzling exterior of green, pink, and white marble. As breathtaking in its size as it was in the artistry that had gone into its construction, the cathedral stretched off in both directions to seemingly impossible distances, its full length nearly equal to that of the Washington Monument laid on its side.its abandonment of traditional monochromatic stone filigree in favor of an unusually flamboyant mix of colors, the structure was pure Gothic—classic, robust, and enduring. Admittedly, Langdon, on his first trip to Florence, had found the architecture almost gaudy. On subsequent trips, however, he found himself studying the structure for hours at a time, strangely captivated by its unusual aesthetic effects, and finally appreciating its spectacular beauty.Duomo—or, more formally, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore—in addition to providing a nickname for Ignazio Busoni, had long provided not only a spiritual heart to Florence but centuries of drama and intrigue. The building’s volatile past ranged from long and vicious debates over Vasari’s much-despised fresco of The Last Judgment on the dome’s interior … to the hotly disputed competition to select the architect to finish the dome itself.Brunelleschi had eventually secured the lucrative contract and completed the dome—the largest of its kind at the time—and to this day Brunelleschi himself can be seen in sculpture, seated outside the Palazzo dei Canonici, staring contentedly up at his masterpiece.morning, as Langdon raised his eyes skyward to the famed red-tiled dome that had been an architectural feat of its era, he recalled the time he had foolishly decided to ascend the dome only to discover that its narrow, tourist-crammed staircases were as distressing as any of the claustrophobic spaces he’d ever encountered. Even so, Langdon was grateful for the ordeal he’d endured while climbing “Brunelleschi’s Dome,” since it had encouraged him to read an entertaining Ross King book of the same name.
“Robert?” Sienna said. “Are you coming?”lowered his gaze from the dome, realizing he had stopped in his tracks to admire the architecture. “Sorry about that.”continued moving, hugging the perimeter of the square. The cathedral was on their right now, and Langdon noted that tourists were already flowing out of its side exits, checking the site off their to-see lists.ahead rose the unmistakable shape of a campanile—the second of the three structures in the cathedral complex. Commonly known as Giotto’s bell tower, the campanile left no doubt that it belonged with the cathedral beside it. Adorned in the identical pink, green, and white facing stones, the square spire climbed skyward to a dizzying height of nearly three hundred feet. Langdon had always found it amazing that this slender structure could remain standing all these centuries, through earthquakes and bad weather, especially knowing how top-heavy it was, with its apex belfry supporting more than twenty thousand pounds of bells.walked briskly beside him, her eyes nervously scanning the skies beyond the campanile, clearly searching for the drone, but it was nowhere to be seen. The crowd was fairly dense, even at this early hour, and Langdon made a point of staying in the thick of it.they approached the campanile, they passed a line of caricature artists standing at their easels sketching garish cartoons of tourists—a teenage boy grinding on a skateboard, a horse-toothed girl wielding a lacrosse stick, a pair of honeymooners kissing on a unicorn. Langdon found it amusing somehow that this activity was permitted on the same sacred cobbles where Michelangelo had set up his own easel as a boy.quickly around the base of Giotto’s bell tower, Langdon and Sienna turned right, moving out across the open square directly in front of the cathedral. Here the crowds were thickest, with tourists from around the world aiming camera phones and video cameras upward at the colorful main facade.barely glanced up, having already set his sights on a much smaller building that had just come into view. Positioned directly opposite the front entrance of the cathedral stood the third and final structure in the cathedral complex.was also Langdon’s favorite.Baptistry of San Giovanni.in the same polychromatic facing stones and striped pilasters as the cathedral, the baptistry distinguished itself from the larger building by its striking shape—a perfect octagon. Resembling a layer cake, some had claimed, the eight-sided structure consisted of three distinct tiers that ascended to a shallow white roof.knew the octagonal shape had nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with symbolism. In Christianity, the number eight represented rebirth and re-creation. The octagon served as a visual reminder of the six days of God’s creation of heaven and earth, the one day of Sabbath, and the eighth day, upon which Christians were “reborn” or “re-created” through baptism. Octagons had become a common shape for baptistries around the world.Langdon considered the baptistry one of Florence’s most striking buildings, he always found the choice of its location a bit unfair. This baptistry, nearly anywhere else on earth, would be the center of attention. Here, however, in the shadow of its two colossal siblings, the baptistry gave the impression of being the runt of the litter.you step inside, Langdon reminded himself, picturing the mind-boggling mosaic work of the interior, which was so spectacular that early admirers claimed the baptistry ceiling resembled heaven itself. If you know where to look, Langdon had wryly told Sienna, Florence is heaven.centuries, this eight-sided sanctuary had hosted the baptisms of countless notable figures—Dante among them.shall return as poet … at my baptismal font.of his exile, Dante had never been permitted to return to this sacred site—the place of his baptism—although Langdon felt a rising hope that Dante’s death mask, through the unlikely series of events that had occurred last night, had finally found its way back in his stead.baptistry, Langdon thought. This has to be where Ignazio hid the mask before he died. He recalled Ignazio’s desperate phone message, and for a chilling moment, Langdon pictured the corpulent man clutching his chest, lurching across the piazza into an alley, and making his final phone call after leaving the mask safely inside the baptistry.gates are open to you.’s eyes remained fixed on the baptistry as he and Sienna snaked through the crowd. Sienna was moving now with such nimble eagerness that Langdon nearly had to jog to keep up. Even at a distance, he could see the baptistry’s massive main doors glistening in the sun.of gilded bronze and over fifteen feet tall, the doors had taken Lorenzo Ghiberti more than twenty years to complete. They were adorned with ten intricate panels of delicate biblical figures of such quality that Giorgio Vasari had called the doors “undeniably perfect in every way and … the finest masterpiece ever created.”had been Michelangelo, however, whose gushing testimonial had provided the doors with a nickname that endured even today. Michelangelo had proclaimed them so beautiful as to be fit for use … as the Gates of Paradise.54Bible in bronze, Langdon thought, admiring the beautiful doors before them.’s shimmering Gates of Paradise consisted of ten square panels, each depicting an important scene from the Old Testament. Ranging from the Garden of Eden to Moses to King Solomon’s temple, Ghiberti’s sculpted narrative unfolded across two vertical columns of five panels each.stunning array of individual scenes had spawned over the centuries something of a popularity contest among artists and art historians, with everyone from Botticelli to modern-day critics arguing their preference for “the finest panel.” The winner, by general consensus, over the centuries had been Jacob and Esau—the central panel of the left-hand column—chosen allegedly for the impressive number of artistic methods used in its making. Langdon suspected, however, that the actual reason for the panel’s dominance was that Ghiberti had chosen it on which to sign his name.few years earlier, Ignazio Busoni had proudly shown Langdon these doors, sheepishly admitting that after half a millennium of exposure to floods, vandalism, and air pollution, the gilded doors had been quietly swapped out for exact replicas, the originals now safely stored inside the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo for restoration. Langdon politely refrained from telling Busoni that he was well aware of the fact that they were admiring fakes, and that in actuality, these copies were the second set of “fake” Ghiberti doors Langdon had encountered—the first set quite by accident while he was researching the labyrinths at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and discovered that replicas of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise had served as the cathedral’s front doors since the mid-twentieth century.Langdon stood before Ghiberti’s masterpiece, his eye was drawn to the short informational placard mounted nearby, on which a simple phrase in Italian caught his attention, startling him.peste nera. The phrase meant “the Black Death.” My God, Langdon thought, it’s everywhere I turn! According to the placard, the doors had been commissioned as a “votive” offering to God—a show of gratitude that Florence had somehow survived the plague.forced his eyes back to the Gates of Paradise while Ignazio’s words echoed again in his mind. The gates are open to you, but you must hurry.Ignazio’s promise, the Gates of Paradise were definitely closed, as they always were, except for rare religious holidays. Normally, tourists entered the baptistry from a different side, through the north door.was on tiptoe beside him, trying to see around the crowd. “There’s no door handle,” she said. “No keyhole. Nothing.”, Langdon thought, knowing Ghiberti was not about to ruin his masterpiece with something as mundane as a doorknob. “The doors swing in. They lock from the inside.”thought a moment, pursing her lips. “So from out here … nobody would know if the doors were locked or not.”nodded. “I’m hoping that’s precisely Ignazio’s thinking.”walked a few steps to his right and glanced around the north side of the building to a far less ornate door—the tourist entrance—where a bored-looking docent was smoking a cigarette and rebuffing inquiring tourists by pointing to the sign on the entrance: APERTURA 1300–1700.doesn’t open for several hours, Langdon thought, pleased. And nobody has been inside yet., he checked his wristwatch, and was again reminded that Mickey Mouse was gone.he returned to Sienna, she had been joined by a group of tourists who were taking photos through the simple iron fence that had been erected several feet in front of the Gates of Paradise to prevent tourists from getting too close to Ghiberti’s masterwork.protective gate was made of black wrought iron topped with sun-ray spikes dipped in gold paint, and resembled the simple estate fencing that often enclosed suburban homes. Ambiguously, the informational placard describing the Gates of Paradise had been mounted not on the spectacular bronze doors themselves but on this very ordinary protective gate.had heard that the placard’s placement sometimes caused confusion among tourists, and sure enough, just then a chunky woman in a Juicy Couture sweat suit pushed through the crowd, glanced at the placard, frowned at the wrought-iron gate, and scoffed, “Gates of Paradise? Hell, it looks like my dog fence at home!” Then she toddled off before anyone could explain.reached up and grasped the protective gate, casually peering through the bars at the locking mechanism on the back.
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